Secretary pleads guilty to stealing $26,000 from Naval Research Lab

Joyce Dawn Ferrell worked at the Navy lab in D.C., where she admitted to stealing $26,000 worth of equipment. (Photo provided courtesy of the Naval Research Laboratory.)

A former secretary at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington has pleaded guilty to stealing $26,000 in equipment and selling the items to pawn shops.

Joyce Dawn Ferrell, 42, admitted her guilt in D.C. federal court and faces up to six months in prison and $10,000 fine, according to prosecutors. She has agreed to pay back the $26,000.

According to prosecutors, Farrell worked in the Optical Sciences Division of the Navy lab in the District of Columbia, and had was authorized to make purchases with a government-issued card at the lab’s commissary. Ferrell, of Indian Head, Md., made a number of unauthorized purchases — computer equipment, thermal imagers, drills – and sold the items to pawn shops in Virginia and Maryland.

To cover up the theft, Ferrell submitted falsified order forms to her Navy supervisors, prosecutors said.